Autocitation and Autobiography and done, all of the Comedy's autocitations are chosen for their ability to point beyond. The three poems share two common features; they all belong to Dante's stil novo register, and their incipits all emphasize the intellect. That is, they all point, from II within the stil novo, to beyond the stil novo, to the radically transformed eros of the Comedy. "Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona," "Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore," "Voi che 'nten- Lyric Quests dendo il terzo ciel movete"-the intellective stress of these verses unite all these canzoni as redeemed poetry. The aim of this chapter has been to clarify some of the au- tobiographical impulses at work in the Comedy. If autobiog- raphy is a mode in which the urge for order is particularly acute, an urge that is translated into a teleological imperative, the autobiography of the Comedy is governed by a dual pressure: Historiography Revisited: the one exerted by the mode, and the other by the providential /I 'I Notaro e Guittone e me" framework. In the Comedy, all characters, all themes, all texts and their makers are inserted into a providential structure that The historiographical knot of the Comedy centers, appropri- guarantees the nature of the ending. In the autobiographical ately enough, around the knot of Purgatorio XXIV: "il nodo / instance (and all of Dante's texts are profoundly autobiograph- che '1 Notaro e Guittone e me ritenne / di qua dal dolce stil ical), the pressure imposed by providence is supplemented by novo chT odo I:' (55-57). Whereas the first part of the pilgrim's the pressure implicit in the discourse, a narrative exigency that wIth Bonagiunta deals solely with Dante's internal accounts for the self-consuming revisionism of these texts. This poetIc bIOgraphy, implicitly situating "Donne ch'avete" with pressure, always present as the deep meaning of Dante's nar- to his to:al oeuvre, Bonagiunta's reply raises external rative structure, appears on the surface in some more "super- questIons of poetIc genealogy and historical precedence. Whereas ficial" forms: the prose and the divisioni of the Vita Nuova, the pilgrim articulates poetic principles in a vacuum, the older the gloss of the Convivio, the autocitations of the Comedy. poet the historical implications of those principles, dis- From this point of view it was a foregone conclusion that the covenng In the pilgrim's poetic credo a criterion of measurement final autocitation would signify not itself but the guaranteed by which he judges earlier Italian poetry-" '1 Notaro e Guit- ending; !lVoi che 'ntendendo" is yet one more new beginning tone e mel/-and finds it lacking. There are, in fact, two distinct to be transformed-!ltransmutata"-into a sign for the Comedy moments accommodated by the dialogue's triadic structure; the itself. And finally, in passing from Dante's treatment of himself pers?nal the historical are both present. We cannot, given to his treatment of his peers, we should note that the teleological the IdentIty of the pilgrim's interlocutor and the nature of his imperative structured into his own "life" is, naturally, imposed comment.s, combined with the additional poetic references of onto the lives of others. Purgatono XXVI, avoid the historiographical intentions of this passage. On the other hand, its historiographical weight does not detract from its impact at the level of autobiographyl

1 In my opinion, Dante wishes to make both the folloWing points in this 84 85 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited Dante intends us to draw a line between old and new; to this the prepositional phrase "di qua da!,1! that effectively end, he provides us with names, both in canto XXIV and again dIvIdes all poets into "here" or "there," "us or them": in canto XXVI, that we can sketch in on either side of the imagined boundary, thus obtaining a rough chronology. Canto "0 frate, issa vegg' io," diss' elli, "il nodo XXIV extends the scope of the investigation backwards to the che 'I Notaro e Guittone e me ritenne beginning of the Italian tradition by mentioning the Notary, di qua dal dolce stil novo ch'i' odo! Giacomo da Lentini; we notice that the passage refers only to 10 veggio ben come Ie vostre penne poetic masters, capiscuoIa, who implicate not only themselves di retro al dittator sen vanno strette but also their followers in an arc that spans each phase of the che de Ie nostre certo non avvenne' I early Italian lyric: from the Notary, head of the Sicilian school, equal piu a gradire oltre si mette, ' to Guittone, head of the Tuscan school, to Bonagiunta, a me- non vede pili da I' uno a I' altro stilo"; diator, or Siculo-Tuscan. 2 We notice, also, the binary opposi- e, quasi contentato, si tacette. tions-we/you, one/other-that structure Bonagiunta's rejoin- "0 brother, now I see," he said, "the knot which held the der, emanating from the original polarity at the heart of his Notary and Guittone and me on this side of the sweet new style which I hear! I see well how your pens follow closely passage: (1) there is a new style that pertains to a group of new poets; this is the stif novo in the generic sense, defined historically as that style or manner after the dictator, which WIth ours certainly did not hap- to which the older poets named here cannot aspire; (2) within this new style, pen; and he who sets himself to proceed further sees no there is a truly new style, characterized by the nove rime, and this is Dante's more from one to the other style." And, as if satisfied he own stil novo. A similar conclusion is reached by Franco Suitner, If 'Colui che was silent. ' fore trasse Ie nove rime,' If Lenere italiane, 28 (1976), 339-345. A balanced case for the existence of the school, based in particular on the perceptions of (55-63; italics mine) other poets, as documented by the various poetic challenges of contemporaries The dichotomy is temporal, extending from the stressed "now" like Guido Orlandi and Onesto degli Onesti, is made by Mario Marti, Storia dello Stil nuovo, 2 vols. (Leece: Milella, 1973); volume I also provides a useful of ("issa vegg' io," "io veggio") to the "then" summary of earlier criticism on the stil novo. For a resume of more recent of Ignorance, from "our" nonperforming pens to "your" ca- critical opinion, see Marti's "Sullo StH nuovo e sugli stilnovisti: linee della pable ones, from "one to the other" style. The fact that on one problematica recente," Cultura e scuola 16, nos. 63-64 (1977), 19-28. Another side we find carefully chosen names and on the other the amor- moderate interpretation is that of Antonio Enzo Quaglia, Gli stifnovisti, in La phous category "dolce stil novo" only strengthens the disparity Stilnovo e fa poesia refigiosa, vol. I of II Duecento: Dalle origini a Dante (Bari: Laterza, 1970). the sense of an unbridged gap. ' 2 The priority of the Sicilian school for Dante is established by De Vulgari Purgatorio XXVI adds to the general picture provided by canto Eloquentia I, xii, 2. Contini considers Bonagiunta "l'autentico trapiantatore dei XXIV: the his ton cal framework is enlarged to incorporate the lf modi siciliani in Toscana (Poeti del Duecento, vol. I, p. 258). On Bonagiunta more names are forthcoming. An Italian in the Comedy, see: James E. Shaw, "Dante and Bonagiunta," The Annual poet, GUlfiIzzelh, out from the unprivileged past as a Report of the Dante Society, 52-54 (1936), 1:.18; Maria Simonelli, "Bonagiunta e la problematica della stil novo," Dante Studies, 86 (1968), 65-83; Marcello precursor to the prIvIleged present; his poetry is carefully con- Ciccuto, "Dante e Bonagiunta: reperti allusivi nel canto XXIV del Purgatorio," nected to Dante's and to the "dolce stil novo" invoked by Bona- Lettere italiane, 34 (1982), 386-395; R. L. Martinez, "The Pilgrim's Answer a double use of the key word" dolce": "Li dolci detti to Bonagiunta and the Poetics of the Spirit," Stanford Italian Review, 3 (1983), vostn 0 XXVI, 112 echoes "rime d'amor ... dolci e leggiadre" 37-63. from XXVI, 99. If the plural of canto XXIV, "vostre penne," 86 87 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited is dismissed by some critics as a sudden shift to the honorific in mind in these sections of the Purgatorio, namely the De (permissible in early Italian syntax), the plural of canto XXVI Vulgari Eloquentia. There he was more explicit regarding those is not so easily bypassed. 3 Here Dante calls Guinizzelli a poetic of his contemporaries he considered his poetic comrades, on one father, who has engendered not only Dante himself, but also occasion using an expression that seems (as has frequently been other love-poetsi presumably, as Guinizzelli's metaphoric "sons," noted) like an anticipation of the formula "dolce stil novo," these others are contemporaries of Dante: "il padre / mio e de referring to Cino da Pistoia and himself as the vernacular poets Ii altri miei miglior chemai/ rime d'amor usar dolci e leg- who have composed "dulcius subtiliusque" ("more sweetly and giadre" ("the father of me and of the others my betters who subtly" [I, x, 2]). On another occasion he specifies that those ever used sweet and graceful rhymes of love" [97-99]). In the Tuscan poets who have achieved vernacular excellence are Ca- light of this passage a plural connotation to "dolce stil novo" valcanti, Lapo, himself, and Cino (I, xiii, 4). Faced with these is, I believe, inescapable. Purgatorio XXVI thus serves to con- passages, we realize that in the Comedy Dante does indeed, firm and buttress canto XXIV: the later canto not only strength- while creating an undifferentiated poetic chorality as a backdrop ens our sense of a dichotomized poetic history (even picking up for his efforts, accord a special status to his own-narned- Guittone again as an example of the old style), but also continues "nove rime. II We notice, for instance, that whereas dolce is to wrap a deliberate anonymity around the practitioners of the ostentatiously used in canto XXVI, novo is not. Instead, Guiniz- new; where before they were hidden by the phrase "vostre zelli's poetry pertains to the "usa moderno": "Li dolci detti penne," they are now identified cryptically as "miei miglior" vostri, / che, quanta durera_ l'uso moderno, / faranno cari an- in line 98. cora i loro incostri" ("Your sweet verses, which, as long as the The anonymity that afflicts Dante's "betters" is suggestive. modern use will last, will make their ink still dear" [112-114]). The sense of a plural is required in order to create the historical The twice-used novo of canto XXIV ("nove rime," "5til novo") framework Dante desires in this contexti tradition, continuity, is avoided in canto XXVIi its burden of epistemological newness genealogy, paternity-the concepts he is here invoking-all re- is replaced by the mere chronological inventiveness of " _ quire groupings, pluralities, for their enactments. Moreover, mo derno. "4 Within the "new style," Dante thus reserves radical the plurals of cantos XXIV and XXVI are consonant with earlier newness for himself. groupings from a historically minded text Dante certainly has If Dante is deliberately vague with reference to his peers, he is never less accountable than in his poetic credo. Perhaps the 3 Much of the discussion of Purgatorio XXIV has centered on the value of "vostre penne"; while accepting the theoretical possibility of a shift in Bona- most striking feature of the "I' mi son un" terzina is its pro- giunta's speech from tu to voi, Marti points out that "vostre penne" in line 58 grammatic lack of specificity. In Purgatorio XXIV Dante claims is answered by "de Ie nostre," where the reference to a group is certain, in line that he is a poet who takes note when Love in-spires him and 60 (Storia dello Sfil nuovo, vol. T, p. 48). And Vittorio Russo, who denies that there is an implicit reference to a school of stilnovisti in this passage, nonetheless 4 The variant "nove penne" would result in a suggestive triple use of novo does not consider the argument that "vostre" is an honorific to be persuasive; in canto XXIV. A propos of "rnoderno usa" and the slightly downgraded status he prefers to break the impasse created by "vostre penne" by substituting the it implies in comparison with "nove rime" and "srii novo," it seems not in- textual variant "nove penne" ("II 'nodo' del Dolce Sti! Novo," Medioevo ro- Significant that, on the only other occasion in which "uso" and "moderno" are manzo, 3 [1976], 236-264). Mark Musa, "The 'Sweet New Style' That I paired in the poem, Dante should carefully dissociate himself from lithe modern does away with the group of stilnovisti by taking "vostre" as the honon6c use"; thus he tells Marco Lombardo that he has been graced to see God's court and "penne" as "wings," so that the passage refers to the poet's "winged flight "per modo tutto fuor del moderno U50" ("in a manner wholly outside modern behind Love" (p. 128). use" [Purg. XVI, 42]). 88 89 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited who signifies according to Love's dictationi herein, he has Bona- a vantage from which to assess the history of the love Iyric- giunta categorically state, lies the only difference between his as within the poem as a whole, the scribal function permits an method of composition and that of his immediate precursors. assessment of universal history-and to reassign value and priority He has learned to bypass the traditional line of authority-the as he chooses. The arbitrariness, or at least discontinuity, of II saggio" of his earlier sonnet-in order to draw his inspiration some of these assessments is evident if we look at Dante's prior directly from the source: Amor. In this terzina, and within the opinions as expressed particularly in the De Vulgari Eloquentia, context of love poetry, the relation between the dictator (Love) a text that bears the burden of historical truth (i.e. one that is and the transcriber (Dante) is exactly analogous to the relation verifiable in human terms) much less lightly than the Comedy. between God and the poet within the larger context of the The Comedy (which predictably employs many more forms of Comedy: as Dante specifies in Paradiso X, speaking of "quella verD, verita, etc. than less subjective texts like the Convivio) materia and' io son fatto scriba" ("that matter of which I am made the scribe" [27]), he is God's secretary, taking down reality respects no truth but its own, least of all that composite and as dictation. The "dittator" of Purgatorio XXIV, 59-Arnor-- approximate truth men know as historYi in the words of one is therefore an analogue, within the lyric and amatory sphere, critic "Dante in his Comedy never serves historYi he uses it. "7 of the other dittator-God, also Amor-within the poem's over- To use history is to revise it, a pattern amply documented by all structure. Because the only external referent in this process Dante's treatment of that slice of history represented by his is an outside, indeed transcendent, authority, and because none immediate peers-other poets. of us can check with God as to what Dante saw, or with Love The view of the vernacular lyric past that informs the Comedy as to the fidelity of Dante's transcription, the apparently humble is inherited from the De Vulgari E[oquentia, where Dante at- role of scribe results in a license to write the world, in fact to tempts a history of the lyric beginning with Peire d'Alvernhe play God unchecked. (whom he mistakenly believes to be among the "antiquiores Without denying that Dante subscribes wholeheartedly to doctores" [I, x, 2]) and ending with himself.8 Although the the notion that his poem is the instrument of a divine message, treatise is explicit regarding the superiority of Dante and his I would suggest that as a poetic strategy granting the poet group, a sense of historical continuity prevails, not yet dispelled absolute freedom and authority, the fiction of the Comedy is unparalleled. If, in Singleton's formula, the fiction of the Com- dievali, 1 (1904), 5-23; Alberto Del Monte, " 'Dolce stil novo,' " Filologia romanza, 3 (1956), 254-264; Silvio Pellegrini, " 'Quando Arnor mi spira,' /I edy is that it is no fiction, then it follows that the strategy of Studi mediolatini e volgari, 6-7 (1959), 157-167. Giuseppe Mazzotta stresses the Comedy is that there is no strategy.5 Precisely such a con- the terzina's trinitarian echoes in Dante, Poet of the Desert, pp. 204-206, as ceptual exercise is at the core of the formulation of Purgatorio does Martinez, "The Pilgrim's Answer to Bonagiunta and the Poetics of the XXIV, whose content has been painstakingly examined for its Spirit." Pellegrini recognizes the terzina's evasiveness, saying that "una certa troubadour components, its trinitarian resonances, but whose indeterminatezza e connaturata al linguaggio dell'incontro fra Dante e Bona- giunta" (p. 160). method of brilliant evasiveness has been less generally acknowl- 7 6 Irma Brandeis, The Ladder of Vision: A Study of Dante's Comedy (New edged. The effect of the celebrated terzina is to create for Dante York: Doubleday, 1960), p. 61. The expression "Vero e" is frequently used as a verse opening by Dante in the Comedy. S Commedia: Elements of Structure (1954; repr. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins 8 Cesare De Lollis bases Dante's erroneous belief in Peire's antiquity on U. Press, 1977), p. 62. information received from the biographies and on Peire's position in 6 On troubadour resonances in the formulation of Purgatorio XXIV, see: the manuscripts; see "Intorno a Pietro d'Alvernia," Giornale storico della let- Cesare De Lollis, "Dolce stil novo e 'noel dig de nova maestria,' " Studi me- teratura italiana, 43 (1904), 28-38. 90 Ii 91 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited by the absolute polarity of the Comedy. The historicity of the Guido Cavalcanti treatise is revealed by the author's care to move chronologically Cino da Pistoia from school to school, devoting separate chapters to each one "amicus eius"[Dante] in order to establish their discrete historical identities. Thus, he passes from a discussion of the Sicilians in chapter xii of Book Not only is the correct progression maintained, but the nation- I to the Tuscans in chapter xiii and the Bolognese in chapter alities are represented according to Dante's estimation of their XVi moreover, all poetic catalogues observe the sequence Pro- importance: five Provenc;als, one Old French, and five Italians. ven,al-Old French-Italian. 9 Most telling in this regard are the The same procedure obtains within the Italian group, who follow catalogues of incipits in Book II, chapters v and vi, which present the order Sicilian-Bolognese-stilnovist (or, in Dante's termi- the reader with nothing less than miniature histories of the nology of the time, "new Tuscan"), and who are represented lyric. The most complete catalogue, that of II, vi, lists incipits by one Sicilian, one Bolognese, and three stilnovisti.lO from the following poets, in the following order: Where these lists deviate from the facts, they may be seen to posit an ideal ranking that begins to approximate the type Giraut de Bornelh of subjective judgment found in the Comedy. The positions at Folquet de Marselha the catalogue's beginning and end are significant in this regard. Arnaut Daniel At the top we find Giraut de Bornelh, whom Dante had earlier Aimeric de Belenoi

Aimeric de Pegulhan 10 It should be noted that I follow the order of the list as given by Mengaldo King of Navarre [Thibaut de Champagne] in his 1979 Ricciardi edition of the De Vulgari Eloquentia, which is also that Judge of Messina [Guido delle Colonne] given by Aristide Marigo (De Vufgari Eloquentia, 3d ed. with appendix by Pier Giorgio Ricci [Florence: Le Monnier, 1968]); however, the editions of Ludovicus Guido Guinizzelli Bertalot (Dantis Alagherii De Vulgari Eloquentia [Geneva: Olschki, 1920]) and Bruno Panvini (De Vulgari Eloquentia [Palermo: Ando, 1968]) place the "Iudex 9 In his treatment of each poetic school, Dante collects a group of poets around de Messana" (Guido delle Colonne) after Guinizzelli and Cavalcanti, thus de- a key figure, much as he collects the stilnovisti around himself. The poets of stroying perfect historical order among the Italians while preserving the larger the Sicilian and Apulian contingent are Guido delle Colonne, Cielo d'Alcamo, sequence from Proven\al to French to Italian. For a refutation, see Mengaldo's Giacomo da Lentini, and Rinaldo d'Aquino. At this period Dante seems to comments in the Introduction to his 1968 edition of the De Vufgari Eloquentia regard Guido delle Colonne as the most notable figure in this group (perhaps (Padova: Antenore, 1968), where he discusses the order of the lists and the because of his influence on GuinizzeUi), citing him first in the chapter and manuscript tradition, stressing the deliberate chronology of the catalogues and choosing him for the lists of Il, v and vii see Marti, "Dante e i poeti della their significance in attesting to the revolutionary historicity of the treatise (pp. scuola sidliana" and "II giudizio di Dante su Guido delle Colonne," in Con LXXXV-LXXXVI). (All further references to Mengaldo's Introduction to the Dante fra i poeti del suo tempo, 2d ed. rev. (Leece: Milella, 1971), pp. 9-28 De Vulgari Eloquentia will be to this edition of 1968.) In the Introduction to and 29-42. The Tuscans Bonagiunta of Lucca, Gallo of Pisa, Mino Mocato of his anthology of Dante's troubadours, Vulgares eloquentes: Vile e poesie dei Siena, and Brunetto of Florence take their places around Guittone, while the trovatori di Dante (Padova: Liviana, 1961), Gianfranco Folena also remarks on Bolognese Guido Ghislieri, Fabruzzo de' Lambertazzi, and Onesta degli Onesti the historiographical intent demonstrated by the catalogue of II, vi, which he are grouped around their leader, "maximus" Guido Guinizzelli. The sequence sees as a progression from the classical troubadours at its head (Giraut, Folquet, of Proven\al-Old French-Italian is followed in all the lists, beginning with the Arnaut) to the later troubadours who mark the turn to Italy in their lives and short one of I, ix, 3, which presents Giraut de Bornelh, Thibaut of Navarre, poetic production, Aimeric de Belenoi and Aimeric de Pegulhan (p. VIII). Another and Guido Guinizzelli in that order as the three representatives of their lan- useful annotated anthology, with translations, is that provided by Bruno Pan- guages; Dante seems to be indicating that the lyric developed in Provence before vini, Le poesie del De Vulgari Eloquentia: Test!" e note (Catania: Giannotta, northern France and in northern France before Italy. 1968). 92 93 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited labeled the Proven,al poet of rectitude and as such his own peets, by the presence of Guittone d' Arezzo, the poet toward Occitanic equivalent. Although Giraut in fact belongs in first whom Dante is consistently most militant; the need for chron- place chronologically, the inexactness of Dante's information ological progression is waived by the need to introduce Guit- regarding the troubadours would suggest that Giraut is in first tone's successors immediately, as an opposition force that will place because Dante wanted him there as the ideal initiator of effectively cancel the Tuscan and his satellites from the record. the series. Giraut at the beginning balances Dante at the end; Indeed, it is precisely in its attitude toward the poet from Arezzo the list moves from the Proven,al poet of rectitude to his Italian that the De Vulgari Eloquentia most anticipates the Comedy, counterpart. In Dante's own case, the manipulation of chro- shedding the historicized restraint that is its trademark. Thus, nology is evident; although he was born before Cino, Dante the chapter on the Tuscans is unique in not containing citations places himself after the Pistoian as the ideal culmination of the from the work of the poets mentioned. Although it is Dante's tradition that began with Ciraut. Such privileging of himself practice, in treating the Sicilians and Bolognese, and indeed and his comrades is a constant in the treatise and is responsible throughout the treatise, to follow each poet's name with an also for other idiosyncratic deviations from the historical record. incipit, in chapter xiii this procedure is not respected; here, For instance, we would expect the discussion of the Italian schools rather than include quotations from the Tuscan poets he has to include a final chapter on the newest group, Dante's own, named (Guittone of Arezzo, Bonagiunta of Lucca, Mino Mocato following the chapter dealing with Guinizzelli, their precursor. of Siena, Brunetto of Florence), Dante presents as his examples There is no such chapter because Dante has already referred to anonymous doggerel taken from the municipal dialects of each his own group in the chapter dealing with Guittone and the of these cities, which are thus represented by folk art rather other Tuscans; immediately after the scathing denunciation of than by their poets. Even more striking is the deletion of Guit- those old Tuscans in chapter xiii, the author breaks into a pan- tone from the catalogue of Ie vi, especially since his absence egyric, whose opening is significantly marked by the adversative cannot be explained as an oversight; the exhortation that follows "Sed": "But although almost all the Tuscans are rendered in- the list names-and denounces-precisely him: "Let the fol- sensitive by their low language, we feel that some know what lowers of ignorance who extol Guittone d' Arezzo and certain excellence of the vernacular is, and these are Guido, Lapo, and others therefore cease, for in their vocabulary and construction one other, Florentines, as well as Cino of Pistoia, whom I un- these poets never lost their plebeian habits" (II, vi, 8). fairly name last, constrained by worthy reasons" (I, xiii, 4). Because the De Vulgari Eloquentia has gone so far in deni- This abrupt departure from the almost pedantic regularity grating Guittone, and because Dante does not reverse his earlier that governs most of the treatise takes us definitively into the opinion, the Comedy can confine itself to confirming Dante's realm of Dante the "militant critic," as he has been labeled in original judgment of the Tuscan poet. Hence, Purgatorio XXVI some recent studies.11 The departure itself is caused, one sus- repeats the tone and even the language of the treatise; the Comedy's "stolti" (as Dante refers to believers in the primacy

11 The two most significant investigations of Dante as critic both refer to his "militancy" in their titles: Marti, "Gli umori del cririco militante," in Con memoration (1921; repr. Freeport, N.Y.: Boaks far Libraries Press, 1968), pp. Dante Ira i poeti del suo tempo, pp. 69-121; Mengaldo, "Critica militante e 83-104; Silvio Pellegrini, "Dante e la tradizione poetica volgare dai provenzali 5toriografia letteraria," in the Introduction, De Vuiga-ri Eloquentia, pp. LXXVlI- ai guittoniarU," Cultura e scuola 4, nas. 13-14 (1965), 27-35; Ignazio Baldelli, ClIo Falena, in the Introdru::tion to Vulgares eloquentes and Quaglio, Gli stilno- "Dante e i poeti fiorentini del Duecento," Leetura Dantis Scaligera (Florence: visti, also discuss Dante's relations with his peers and predecessors, as da: Le Monnier, 1968); Enzo Nae Girardi, "Dante critico, saggio e pastille," Edmund G. Gardner, "Dante as Literary Critic," in Dante: Essays in Com- ltalianistica, 6 (1977), 203-224. 94 95 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited of Giraut, in a passage that by implication considers followers and then add that this newly affirmed primacy of Arnaut' 5 is of Guittone equally benighted) echo the De Vulgari Eloquentia's incontestable, despite those fools who think Giraut de Bornelh IIfollowers of ignorance." There is, however, a notable differ- ("quel di Lemosi") the greater poet; Guinizzelli concludes by ence between the treatise and the poem. In the treatise, the pointing out, rather gratuitously, that an analogous situation weight of history is such that Dante feels obliged to present used to exist in Italy, where similar fools considered Guittone supporting evidence for his claims against Guittone, and hence d'Arezzo the supreme poet, until finally the truth prevailed (we insists on the Aretine's "plebeian" qualities of diction and con- notice, in this moment of extreme subjectivity, Dante's insist- struction: first in the chapter dedicated to the Tuscans, where ence on "il ver," repeated twice in the course of six lines): he says that Guittone "nunquam se ad curiale vulgare direxit" ("never addressed himself to the courtly vernacular" [I, xiii, "0 frate," disse, "questi ch'io ti cerna 1]) and goes on to specify that the writings of these poets are col dito," e addito un spirto innanzi, strictly municipal in character; and again in the passage cited "fu miglior fabbro del parlar materna. above, following the catalogue of II, vi, where the use of the Versi d' amore e prose di romanzi verb plebescere picks up the former distinction between dicta soverchio tutti; e lascia dir li stolti municipalia and dicta curialia. These statements, for all their che quel di Lemos! credon ch' avanzi. highhandedness, are in marked contrast to the Comedy, where A voce pili ch'al ver drizzan Ii volti, Guittone is declassed on mystical rather than linguistic grounds, e COS! ferman sua oppinione where the only reason, if it can be called that, offered for his prima ch'arte 0 ragion per lor s'ascolti. poetic inferiority is the blanket explanation of Purgatorio XXIV, Cosi fer molti anticru di Guittone, which attributes his pedestrian verse (along with that of the di grido in grido pur lui dando pregio, other earlier poets) to a lack of inspiration, an inability to follow fin che l'ha vinto iI ver can pili persone. " Love. Thus it is Guittone's lack, and not Dante's desire to dis- "0 brother," he said, "the one there whom I indicate with credit him, that accounts for the treatment he receives in the my finger," and he pointed to a spirit ahead, "was a better sacred poem. craftsman of the mother tongue. Verses of love and proses Guittone is the only poet from canto XXIV to be mentioned of romances he surpassed all-and let the fools talk who a second time, a recurrence that signals the transition from the think that he of Limoges is superior. They turn their faces cool and apparently objective indictment of " 'I Notaro e Guit- toward rumor rather than the truth, and so they form tone e me" to the more heated and overtly autobiographical their opinion before listening to art or reason. So did many controversies of canto XXVI. 12 In order to bring Guittone back of the oldtimers with Guittone, from cry to cry giving into the discourse, Dante has Guinizzelli first praise Arnaut praise to him only, until with most people the truth con- Daniel, calling him the "miglior fabbro del parlar materna," quered .... " (Purg. XXVI, 115-126) !2 In "II canto XXVI del Purgatoria," Nuova Lectum Dantis (Rome: Si- gnorelli, 1951), Aurelio Roncaglia discusses the canto's two poles of critical Guittone is thus embedded in a dialectical structure that en- objectivity and autobiographical subjectiVity (p. 18). Also on this canto, see compasses old and new, false and true, on a historiographical Angelo Monteverdi, "II canto XXVI del Purgatorio," Lectum Datltis Scaligera (Florence: Le Monnier, 1965) and Gianfranco Folena, "II canto di Guido Guiniz- grid whose components are the key to his undoing; 13 zelli," Giarnale storieo della letteratura italiana, 154 (1977), 481-508. !: l3 The historiographical grid of canto XXVI also comprises, as scholars have ! 96 97 I i!iUi .. ______ft ... ______Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited

by coupling Guittone with Giraut, the most renowned trou- incipit represents the langue d'DC in the discussion of the com- badour of his day, Dante makes the denunciation all the more mon origin of Romance languages in I, ix; he is the Provens;al telling. Rather than denying the fame of these poets, he simply poet of rectitude, paired with Dante among the Italians, in II, denies that their fame was justified. ii; and he heads the lists of Il, v and Il, vi, devoted respectively Although undoubtedly effective, this method of attacking to canzoni that begin with hendecasyllables, and canzoni that Guittoile has serious repercussions of a revisionist nature. One are examples of the "gradum constructionis excellentissimum." result is to raise Arnaut definitively above Giraut, in sharp In two of these categories he is without an Occitanic rival since contrast to the situation in the De Vulgari Eloquentia, where he is the only troubadour cited (1, ix and lJ, v). Where other if anything Giraut is the privileged poet. Although I do not troubadours are also present, Giraut is invariably above the agree with those critics who, like Santangelo, argue for the others (lJ, ii and lJ, vi). Arnaut overlaps with Giraut twice, and exclusive primacy of Giraut during the period of the De Vulgari on both occasions he is "beneath" him: in one case he is the Eloquentia, the special status accorded the poet from Limoges Proven,al poet of love, paired with Cino among the Italians, in the treatise is indisputable. 14 Giraut is the troubadour whose while Giraut is the poet of rectitude (Il, ii), and in the other he is two places below Giraut in the list of composers in the high noticed, interesting intertextual components: Dante's reference to Guinizzelli style (Il, vi). On the other hand, Arnaut is mentioned in two as "i! padre / mio" echoes Guinizzelli's reference to GuiHone, in the inopit of his sonnet to the Aretine, as "[0] caro padre mea"; Dante's use of the rare places where no other troubadour, including Giraut, is present; verb imbarcare in line 75 echoes Guinizzelli's use of it, again in the sonnet to in both instances he serves as a representative of technical ex- Guittone; Dante's stress on "il ver" (lines 121 and 126) recalls Guinizzelli's cellence, first for the use of the indivisible stanza (lJ, x) and reply to Bonagiunta, "Omo ch'e saggio non corre Ieggero," where the Bolognese secondly for the use of the stanza containing no rhymes in itself poet appeals twice to the "truth." See Ernest Hatch Wilkins, "Guinizelli Praised and Corrected," in The Invention of the Sonnet and Other Studies in Italian (Il, xiii). Literature (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1959), pp. 111-113, and Thus, although Giraut and Arnaut share the honor of being most recently, Franco Suitner, " 'Colui che fore trasse Ie nove rime.' " the only troubadours in the De Vulgari Eloquentia who are each 14 Salvatore Santangelo's book, Dante e i trovator; provenzali (Catania: Gian- mentioned four times in all, they emerge from the treatise with notta, 1921), suffers from the schematic rigidity with which the author, insisting markedly distinct poetic physiognomies. The divergence be- that Dante had access to only one troubadour canzoniere, assigns certain poets to discrete stages of Dante's development with no possibility of contamination; tween the two poets is borne out by their placement; Giraut a recent critique is provided by Maurizio Perugi in his exhaustive study of appears earlier in the treatise, even once in the philosophically Arnaldian echoes in Dante's texts, "Arnaut Daniel in Dante," Studi danteschi, oriented first book, whereas Arnaut begins to appear with more 51 (1978), 59-152 (see esp. pp. 103-108). Some of the numerous articles devoted frequency in the technical sections at the end of Book II. Giraut to Dante and the troubadours begin as reviews of Santangelo's book; among is in the loftier position, but Arnaut is perhaps the more studied. these are E. Hoepffner, "Dante et les Troubadours," Etudes Itafiennes, 4 (1922), 193-210, and Luigi Pastine, "Dante e i trovatori," Ii Giornafe dantesco, 26 Indeed, it is debatable which is in fact the higher tribute--- (1923), 15-26 and 128-141. Other contributions on this topic are; A. Jeanroy, Giraut's classification with Dante in the category of poet of "Dante et les Troubadours," in Dante; Melanges de Critique et d'Erudition rectitude, or the frank avowal of imitation that is accorded Ar- franfaises publies a {'Occasion du VIe Centenaire de fa Mort du Poete (Paris: Union lntellectuelle Franco-Italienne, 1921), pp. 11-21; J. Veran, "Dante et les Troubadours," La Revue Hebdomadaire 30, fase. 27 (1921), 93-103; A. G. porad, 1930), pp. 81-95; Luigi Peirone, Lingua e stile nella poesia di Dante Ferrers Howell, "Dante and the Troubadours," in Dante: Essays in Commem- (Genova: Edizioni Universitarie, 1967). Also useful are the anthology of H. J. oration, pp. 191-223; Henri Hauvette, "Dante et la Poesie in La Chaytor, The Troubadours of Dante (1902; repr. Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, France et la Provence dans {'Oeuvre de Dante (Paris: Boivin, 1929), pp. 107- 1974) and the bibliographical study of F. Pirot, "Dante et ies Troubadours," 146; A. Parducd, "Dante e i trovatori," in Provenza e Italia (Florence: Bem- Marche romane, 15 (1965), 213-219. 98 99 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited naut. For, despite his typical chariness in admitting influence, nets that recapitulate the worst of Guittone's rhetorical excesses Dante explicitly says that he copied Arnaut in the composition and virtuosic obscurantism. As in the first tenzone Dante da of his sestina; his exact words are "nos eum secuti sumus cum Maiano begins with the exposition of a "vision" that needs diximus 'AI poco giorno e al gran cerchio d'ombra' 1/ ("we fol- decoding, so later Dante himself will request similar assistance lowed him when we composed ... " [II, x, 2]). The gap between from his peers in the sonnet that becomes the first lyric of the Arnaut's position in the treatise and his position in the poem Vita Nuova, 1/ A ciascun'alma presa e gentil core. /I Cavalcanti's is therefore not so great as has been supposed; rather, the Com- reply to that sonnet may be used to effectively mark the end edy preserves and renders explicit, in its delineation of a "fab- of Dante's first Guittonian stage; Dante had found a new poetic bra," the De Vulgari Eloquentia's implicit tribute to a master master. On the other hand, we must specify that the Guitton- stylist. With respectto the De Vulgari Eloquentia, then, Dante's ianism from which Dante is freed by Cavalcanti is but the first opinion of Arnaut has not so much changed as intensified. What such stage in his poetic career; after his stU novo phase, which has changed, apparently, is his opinion of the poet who had is best defined in negative terms as a rejection of the prevailing been at the head of the lists, Giraut de Bornelh. norm determined by Guittone, Dante develops the less restricted The status of "quel di Lemosl" is structurally connected- poetic language evidenced by the petrose and the moral can- through the ratio of Purgatorio XXVI, which equates Giraut zoni.I6 It is at this point that Guittone makes his reappearance and Guittone, Arnaut and Guinizzelli-to the status of the poet from Arezzo. Although Guittone's oppressive presence as the Cuittonian opening in "Ahi" (which characterizes numerous Dantesque in- cultural dictator of his day has been duly observed, it would be vectives and apostrophes); the use of apostrophes and rhetorical questions for well to remind ourselves of the extent of Dante's own indebt- denunciation and accusation (indeed, both poets go so far as to direct such a question to Cod: compare Guittone's "Deo, com'hailo sofrito, / deritto pera e edness to his Tuscan precursor, an indebtedness that spans rus torto entd 'n altezza?" ["Cod, how have you suffered it, that justice perish career, from the early tenzoni with the older Guittonian poet and injustice be raised on high?" 14-15J with Dante's liE se licito m'e, 0 somma Dante da Maiano to the passages in the Comedy (particularly Giove ... son Ii giusti occhi tooi dvolti altrove?" ["And if it be allowed me, the invectives) that bear the imprint of the Aretine's oratorical o supreme Jove ... are your just eyes turned elsewhere?" 118-120]); the use 1s of heavy sarcasm, of repetition and anaphora (anaphora in particular is cultivated style. The young Dante starts as an imitator, exchanging son- by Dante in his invectives), of aphorisms; and intense rhetorical play in the form of etymological puns and the like. To a lesser degree, one can spot the 15 For the influence of Guittone on the so-called tenzone del duol d' amore impact of Guittone's religious poetry on the Comedy; compare, for instance, between Dante Alighieri and Dante da Maiano, see Marti, "Gii umori del critico his lauda for Saint Dominic, "Meraviglioso beato," with the tribute to the saint miutante," esp. pp. 71-77i for the pervasive Guittonianism of Dante's early in Paradiso XII. In fact, since Cuittone wrote lauds for both Dominic and Francis, lyrics, see Foster and Boyde, Commentary, pp. 1-71. Contini concludes his it would seem that he prOVided the paradigm for the double tribute of Paradiso review of Francesco Egidi's edition of Guittone, Giornale storieD della letteratura XI and XII. Another suggestive connection between Cuittone's eanzoniere and italian a, 117 (1941), 55-82, with a brief discussion of Guittone in Dante, in the Comedy regards Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, Cuido's father; the possible which he speaks of "un Cuittone quasi dantesco" (p. 82). allusions to heterodoxy in Cuittone's exhortation to "messer Cavalcante" (XXVIi Cuittone's influence on the Comedy falls into two main categories. Most see esp. 43-44) seem to anticipate Inferno X. apparent is the influence of his political poetry on the political invectives, where 16 On the .first page of their Commentary, Foster and Boyde define the stU Dante appropriates not only the Aretine's impassioned tone but also some of novo as a purist movement and comment that "to appreciate the stilnovo one his specific trademarks. Like Cuittone, Dante punctuates his invectives with must know what those poets reacted against, what they rejected"; at the end apostrophes and rhetorical questions. Taking as a basis for comparison the of the Guittonian section, they state that "when the reaction, or rather revo- canzone II Ahi lasso, or e stagion de doler tanto" and the invective of Purgatorio lution; is complete, one can indeed speak of a new style, determined anti- VI, we find the foHowing borrowed techniques in the Comedy: the standard thetically in polemic against the prevailing taste" (p. 71). In Dante's Style in 100 101 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited lTI Dante's lexicon and style, contributing most notably to the consider important enough to mention, like Chiaro Davanzati great lyrical sermons like "Doglia mi reca ne 10 core ardire." or Monte Andrea. The impassioned cry at the end of De Vulgari Despite Guittone's manifest importance as the first Italian Eloquentia II, vi-"Subsistant igitur ignorantie sectatores Guic- poet to open up the vernacular to moral and political themes, tonem Aretinum"-and the contrived reinsertion of Guittone criticism on Guittone has tended to reflect Dante's verdict of into the dialogue of Purgatorio XXVI point not away from the his Tuscan precursor. 17 But Dante's denunciation is too strong Aretine but toward him: to his continuing significance, rather to be taken at face value; his very insistence on Guittone serves than to his lack thereof. We might note those features of Guit- to set the Tuscan apart from other contemporaries he does not tone's career that are particularly suggestive. First, there is the fact that the manuscript tradition presents him as essentially His Lyric Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1971), Patrick Boyde claims two different poets, "Guittone" before his conversion and "Frate that, from the rhetorician's point of view, Dante's development as a lyric poet Guittone" after his joining a new religious order, the Milites occurs in two distinct phases; the first phase (corresponding to the stU novo) 18 is one in which "all the developments take the form of a contraction or restriction Beatae Virgin is Mariae, in 1265. While "Guittone" wrote love in the range of expressive means," whereas in the second phase (corresponding poetry whose incessant hammering on the sen hal " gioia" with to the moral canzoni and the petrose) "the developments all represent an ex- its rhyming counterpart "noia" is undeniably tedious, "Frate pansion" (p. 317). Guittone" wrote moral verse whose vigor and energy are un- 17 The traditional view of Cuittone is stated by De Sanctis, who accords him moral value but no poetic artistry or inspiration. Scholars aware of Dante's deniablyeffective. Second, Guittone was forced to leave Arezzo debt to Cuittone long sought excuses for Dante's refusal to acknowledge the for political reasons. Although his poetry never achieves the Aretine, rather than face his essential arbitrariness in this matter; thus De grandeur of Dante's "l'essilio che m'e dato, onor mi tegno" Lollis, in "Arnaldo e Cuittone," ldealistiche Neuphilologie: Festschrift fur Karl (lithe exile which is given me I hold an honor" [liTre donne," Vossler (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1922), pp. 159-173, argues that Dante rejects 76]), his self-defense in "Gente noiosa e villana" forecasts the Cuittone because his ideal lyric canon admits only love poetry, not political poetry. The basic comprehensive work on Cuittone is Claude Margueron, Re- tone of moral superiority that characterizes analogous passages cherches sur Guittone d'Arezzo (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1966); in Dante's verse. Guittone was also a political poet, whose attack other studies on Cuittone include: Achille Pellizzari, La vita e Ie opere di on Florence in "Ahi lasso, or e stagion de doler tanto/' written Guittone d'Arezzo (Pisa: NistrL 1906); Francesco Torraca, "Fra Guittone," in after the defeat of the Guelphs at Montaperti, anticipates the Studi di storia letteraria (Florence: Sansoni, 1923), pp. 108-152; Alberto Del Monte, "Guittone dell'aridita," in Studi sulla poesia ermetica medievale (Na- bitter sarcasm of the Comedy's Florentine invectivesi like Dante ples: Giannini, 1953), pp. 113-186; Maria Teresa Cattaneo, "Note sulla poesia in his political tirade of Purgatorio VI, Guittone has mastered di Guittone," Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, 137 (1960), 165-203 a style that is grounded in the specific but not limited thereby, and 325-367; Achille Tartaro, II manifesto di Guittone e altri studi fra Due e whose historicity is capable of generating a universal reproof. Quattrocento (Rome: Bulzoni, 1974), pp. 13-75; Agnello Baldi, Guitfone d'A- reno fra impegno e poesia (Cercola: Societa Editrice Salernitana, 1975); Vincent 18 On Guittone's conversion and the probable date for his joining the "Knights Moleta, The Early Poetry of Guittone d'Arezzo (London: The Modern Hu- of the Blessed Virgin Mary," popularly dubbed Frati Gaudenti, see Margueron, manities Research Association, 1976). Specifically on Dante's unfairness in p. 22 and pp. 36-40. On the manuscript division into love poetry and moral dealing with Guittone is the article by Ciuseppe Bolognese, "Dante and Guittone poetry, see Francesco Egidi, ed., Le rime di Guittone d'Arezzo (Bari: Laterza, Revisited," Romanic Review, 70 (1979), 172-184. Contini speaks of the "assidua 1940), pp. 285-286. Guittone's poems are cited and numbered according to denigrazione compiuta da Dante" vis-a-vis Guittone, which is nonetheless "un Egidi's edition, except for the following canzoni, taken from Poeti del Duecento, omaggio reso alIa sua attualita" (Poeti del Duecento, vol. I, p. 191), while vol. I: "Tuttor, s'eo veglio 0 dormo"; "Ahi lasso, or e stagion de doler tanto"; Quaglia stresses Dante's need to rid himself of Guittone, "un pericoloso rivale" "Ora parra s'eo savero cantare"; "Comune perta fa comun dolore"; "Magro (G/i stilnovisti, p. 20). baroni certo e regi quasi." 102 103 r

Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited We should add that Guittone, through his letters, is the only ringo in the bolgia of the hypocrites, and his implied connection Italian poet before Dante to contribute significantly to the de- between their previous state as "Jovial Brothers" ("Frati godenti velopment of vernacular prose style. l9 Finally, all of this literary fummo" [In/. XXIII, 103]) and their present state as members activity takes place in a language whose composite quality has of the "brotherhood of sad hypocrites" ("collegia / de l'ipocriti caused one linguist to speak not-with Dante-of "dicta rnu- tristi" [In/. XXIII, 91-92]), is undoubtedly linked to his anti- nicipalia," but rather of "cosmopolitismo guittoniano," an Guittonianism. Guittone seems to have been well-acquainted expression that more accurately reflects the scope of Guittone's with Loderingo, one of the order's principal founders: the two aspirations, and of his prestige. 20 were companions in the monastery of Ronzano, and Guittone of all his Italian predecessors, Guittone alone attempted what commiserated with him on his undeserved tribulations in a Dante would later accomplish-a fact that Dante, unaided by canzone reverentially addressed to "Padre dei padri miei e mio hindsight, was less inclined to discount than we. The central messere" ("Father of my fathers and my lord"). On the other event in this problematic is Guittone's conversion, a conversion hand, for all Dante's derision of Guittone's religious affiliations, that led not only to a different kind of life, as in the case of he can hardly have overlooked verses like the following: Folquet de Marselha (it is interesting that both poets left behind a wife and children), but also to a different kind of writing. Vergognar troppo e doler, lasso, deggio, Although Dante never acknowledges Guittone's religious ex- poi fui daI mio principio a mezza etate perience, one suspects that he did not view it favorably. Mem- in loco laido, desorrato e brutto, bers of the order to which Guittone belonged were called Frati ove m'involsi tutto, Gaudenti, because of their alleged laxity; Dante's mockery of e venni ingrotto, infermo, pover, nuto, the Frati Gaudenti through the characters of Catalano and Lode- cieco, sardo e muto, desviato, vanito, morta e peggia 19 Cesare Segre writes on Guittone's prose in Lingua, stile e sacietii: Studi sulla staria della prosa italiana (Milan: FeltrinelH, 1963), pp. 95-175. Santan- Too much must I shame and sorrow, alas, since from my gelo discusses Guittone's prose with reference to the prose of the (anvivio in beginning to middle age I was in a filthy, dishonorable, " 'Sale nuovo' e 'sale usato': Dante e Guittone," in Saggi danteschi (1926-27; and ugly place, in which I was completely caught up, and I repro Padova: Cedam, 1959), pp. 93-129; he believes that the famous passage at the end of the first book of the Convivia on the coming of a "new sun" came [from it] sick, infirm, poor, nude, blind, deaf, and refers not to the vernacular' 5 rise to preeminence over Latin, as is generally dumb, off course, out of my senses, dead and worse supposed, but to the fact that the prose of the Convivia will surpass the prose (" Ahi, quant'ho che vergogni e che doglia aggio," of Guittone's Lettere. Pellizzari points out that Guittone's verse letters are 5-11; italics mine) responsible for introducing prosimetrum into Italian literature (p. 216). The expression "cosmopolitismo guittoniano" is used by Giacomo Devoto, Here we have Guittone's selva oscura, complete with the co- Profila di staria linguistica italiana (Florence: La Nuova ltalia, 1953), p. 56. incidence between his "a mezza etate" and Dante's "mezzo del Silvio Pellegrini rejects Dante's definition of Guittone's language as "municipal" in "De vulgari eloquentia, Libro I, cappo 10-19," Studi medialatini e volgari, camrnin." Most arresting is the phrase "desviato, vanito, marta S (1960), 155-163, where he claims that the judgments of the De Vulgari e peggio/" which contains the voyage metaphor used repeatedly Eloquentia are biased because the treatise privileges poetry written in an im- by Guittone: "desviai, tu me renvii" ("I went off the path, you material and abstract lexicon. Carlo Salinari, in the Introduction to his an- put me back on") he says to God in another strikingly "Dan- thology, La paesia lirica del Duecento, 2d ed. rev. (Turin: Unione Tipografico- tesque" composition (flVergogna ho, lasso, ed ho me stesso ad Editrice Torinese, 1968), refers to Guittone's "linguaggio aulico" (p. 24). ira," 95). 104 105 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited Guittone adumbrates not only the condition of the Comedy's locar loco li posso; und'eo rancuro, pilgrim, but also the beliefs of its poet; he too is a scriba Dei. ch'un picciol motto pate un gran ben fare. In one canzone he undertakes to speak out against atheism, buttressed not by his own wisdom but by God's: I have said much and not too much, if good; a great sub- ject is not contained by a small space. To say little about a Ma non del mio saver dico gia farlo, great thing does not befit the task or is obscure. And some rna del suo, per cui parlo; say that my poetry is hard and harsh to savor; and this che la sua gran merce sper mi proveggia may be true. What is the reason? That my discourse ed amaestri e reggia abounds, because I make a great canzone and I bind the la lingua mia in assennando stolti. words, and never can I find a place for all of them; which I But not with my own learning do I say that I will do it, regret, because a little word can accomplish a great good. but with His, for Whom I speak; since His great mercy (159-170) provides me with hope, and teaches me, and guides my Here Guittone justifies the length and "harshness" of his poem tongue in making fools wise. (using the same adjective, aspro, that Dante will use in the ("Poi male tutto e nulla inver peccato," 16-20) exordium of his first moral composition, "Le dold rime") by Similarly, in his famous conversion poem, "Ora parra s'eo sa- invoking the greatness of his subject. Indeed, the weightiness vero cantare," Guittone rejects the troubadour equation be- of the theme is such that Guittone's thoughts-his IIragione"- tween poetry and Love; he claims that God is the only true must still exceed the boundaries of the container. Thus, for the source of inspiration and, using the metaphor of the poem as a poet who has a truly "gran matera," even a "gran canzon" ship so familiar to readers of the Comedy, he advises the poet remains a "picciolloco. 1/21 to "make God his star" (19). Most significant with respect to At 170 lines" Altra fiata aggio gia" is 10 lines longer than Guittone's poetics is the statement with which he defends him- the Comedy's longest canto, but, as Guittone himself seems to self in the canzone "Altra fiata aggio gia, donne, parlato" for realize, merely lengthening the genre that he has is not the his arduous verse; the nominal subject of his poem, chastity,

has generated a larger discourse that he knows will displease 21 This issue of length has some interesting ramificationsi the contiguous some of his readers: elevation of Amaut and disparagement of Guittone in Purgatorio XXVI is perhaps not unrelated. Whereas Cuittone feels that the lyric is not long enough Ditt'aggio manto e non troppo, se bono: to accommodate his discourse, Amaut is a declared devotee of compression; at 11 non gran matera cape in picdolloco. Love's command, he says, he will make a "breu chansson de razon loigna" Di gran cosa dir poco ("brief song with a long theme" [XVI, 4]). Brevity is thus the hallmark of the 1.1 love poet, and Cuittone's lack of it is one more sign of his aspiration to a non dicese al mestieri 0 dice scuro. different-and forbidden-status. The relative lengths of love poems and moral E dice a!cun ch'e duro poems in his canzoniere support this hypothesis. Whereas Guittone's longest e aspro mio trovato a savorare; love canzone is 115 lines, and the average length of his love canzoni is 68 lines, e pate esser vero. Und'e cagione? his longest moral canzone is 219 lines, and the average length of his moral! che in'abonda ragione, political canzoni is 102 lines. Dante, although less extreme, follows the same pattern: the average length of his love canzoni is 71 lines and the average length perch'eo gran canzon faccio e serra matti, of his moral canzoni is 136 lines. Dante's longest canzone is the moral poem e nulla fiata tutti deeply indebted to Cuittone, "Doglia mi reca," which has 158 lines. 106 107 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited solution to his problem. What he needs to hold his "gran ma- lines state, he writes in order to reawaken these slumbering and tera" is something altogether new, a really "gran canzon," exiled virtues :22 perhaps-like the Comedy-the equivalent of many canzoni Per solatz revelhar, stitched together. Although Guittone is not capable of the Dan- Que s' es trop endormitz, tesque leap required for such an invention, he is capable of a E per pretz, qu'es faiditz, sense of mission much like Dante's, as articulated for instance Acolhir e tornar, in the last verse of /I Altra fiata aggio gia," where he states that Me cudei trebalhar "a little word can accomplish a great good," or, more succinctly, in his claim that his God-given task is to "make fools wise." It To reawaken pleasure which has been too long asleep and is not surprising, therefore, that Dante returns to Guittone to bring back and welcome true worth, which is exiled, I precisely as he embarks upon his own mission to make fools have decided to put myself to work wise. In a famous passage of the De Vulgari Eloquentia Dante (1-5) establishes that the magnalia, the greatest and most worthy The chief enemy of the old values is the avarice of the present topics on which to write poetry, belong to the three categories nobility, a group that no longer practices the generosity of their of "armorum probitas" ("prowess of arms"), "amoris accensio" ancestors. In his contrastive analysis of "Per solatz revelhar" ("kindling of love"), and "directio voluntatis" ("directing of and "Dogha mi reca," Michelangelo Picone demonstrates Dante's the will"), and assigns representative and Italian poets enlargement of Giraut's themes from the socially circumscribed to each of these categories: "About these [topics 1 alone, if we world of troubadour ethics to a universally formulated moral recall rightly, we have found illustrious men to have written indictment.23 Mediating between these two texts are the moral poetry in the vernacular, that is Bertran de Born on arms, canzoni of Guittone d'Arezzo, an Italian poet who had already Arnaut Daniel on love, Giraut de Bornelh on rectitudei Cino assimilated the lessons of Giraut de Bornelh and adapted his of Pistoia on love, his friend on rectitude" (II, ii, 8). Cino's Occitanic morality to Tuscany, his to Italian, friend is, of course, Dante, who thus claims for himself the title thus becoming the initiator of the Italian tradition of the directio of poet of rectitude, whose purpose is to direct the wills of others. voluntatis. If "Doglia mi reca" hearkens back to the troubadour In claiming such a title, and in citing his poem on avarice, moralist Giraut de Bomelh, and to his moralsirventes, it hearkens "Doglia mi reca," as the example of his poetry in this mode, back equally to the moral poetry of Guittone d'Arezzo. In fact, Dante cannot fail to be aware of the other major Italian lyric in his discussion of "Doglia mi reca" as an example of Dante's poet to have written on such matters. This is Guittone, who mature lyric style, Patrick Boyde stresses the poem's Guittonian wrote not only about avarice but about all the seven deadly sins elements and suggests as a general structural model II Altra fiata (most overtly in his sonnet sequence on the vices and virtues), aggio gia," Guittone's exhortation to chastitYi 24 both poems and whose canzoni deal explicitly with the social manifestations 22 Giraut's texts are from Adolf Kolsen, ed., Siimtliche Lieder des Trobadors of good and evil. Giraut de Bornelh (1910; repr. Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1976). In this passage of the De Vulgari Eloquentia Dante's Pro- 23 "Giraut de Bornelh nella prospettiva di Dante," Vox Romanica, 39 (1980), ven,al equivalent is Giraut de Bornelh, whose cited poem is the 22-43. sirventes "Per solatz revelhar," in which Giraut deplores the I4 "Style and Structure in 'Doglia mi reca,'" in Dante's Style in His Lyric Poetry, pp. 317-331; on Dante's debt to Guittone and the structural similarities passing of the chivalric virtues solatz and pretzi as the opening between "Doglia mi rera" and "Altra fiata aggio gbl," see esp. pp. 321-324. 108 109 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited begin as direct appeals to an audience of "ladies" who eventually the troubadour world is in grave disarray. Particularly signifi- make room for the authors' wider concerns. It is interesting, cant is the eschatological departure from the usual themes that moreover, that in "Doglia mi reca" Dante should declare his begins in the sixth stanza, where the poet deduces from the intention to write clearly and openly: "che rado sotto benda I general decadence that all men, including the most powerful, parola oscura giugne ad intelletto" ("for rarely under a veil should concern themselves with the afterlife, when their power does the obscure word reach the intellect" [57-58]). Considering will be gone and they will be in the hands of the true king; that flAltra fiata aggio gia" contains Guittone's most celebrated Giraut offers as his "wise counsel" that it is preferable to correct defense of his obscurity, it is not impossible that Dante, aware one's faults here than to find them a burden later on. This of his debt to that poem, intends thus to inscribe an implicit theme intensifies in the next stanza, becoming an overt praye'r disclaimer into his own composition. to the "One and Triune God" at the poem's end. Indeed, Gi- One might go further, and speculate that Dante's insistence Taut's commitment to morality is such that even in a love poem on clarity is also an implicit attempt to establish Giraut, rather like "Si"m sentis fizels amics," cited in I, ix, he is capable of l than Guittone, as the poetic forebear of his text; a major part announcing that "Oimais semblara prezics / Mas chans ' ("from of the troubadour's legend centers in fact around his formulation now on my song will seem a sermon" [46-47]).26 This insistence of a trobar leu, or plain style, as the appropriate vehicle for on his poetry as a "prezics," which served Giraut so well in the moral verse. 25 Dante's choice of Giraut as his ideal precursor in De Vulgari Eloquentia, is ultimately responsible, I believe, for the moral mode is borne out by the De Vulgari Eloquentia, his demotion in the Comedy. Whereas in the treatise Giraut's where two of Giraut's four incipits are from sirventes. "Si per moral themes are an asset, allowing him to be a forecaster of mo Sobre-Totz no fos," cited in the list of II, vi, deals with Dante, his figural adumbration as poet of rectitude, in the Com- themes similar to those treated in "Per solatz revelhar"; again edy these same moral themes are a liability, because they inev- itably link Giraut to the rejected Italian practitioner of the di- l 2S On Giraut's trohar leu and the relation of his style to his moral concerns, rectia voluntatis, Guittone d Arezzo. 27 Moreover, in the Comedy see Linda M. Paterson, Troubadours and Eloquence (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1975), chap. 3. The fact that Giraut says he prefers the plain style does not 26 Paterson points out that Ciraut's "didactic approach affects his love songs mean, however, that he consistently employs it; in fact, the concision of his as well as his sirventes" (p. 142), and quotes Salverda de Grave, according to verse often renders it obscure, as I.-J. Salverda de Grave points out in Obser- whom for Giraut "l'amour a ete en grande partie matiere a moralisation" vations sur I' Art Iyrique de Giraut de Borneil, Mededeelingen der koninklijke (Observations sur f'Art lyrique de Giraut de Borneil, p. 16). nederlandsche Akadernie van Wetenschappen, afd. letterkunde, Nieuwe reeks, 27 Contini suggests that Dante rejects Giraut because the troubadour's com- deel I, no. 1 (Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche, 1938): "La caracteristique la mitment to rectitudo "10 avvidnava piuttosro a Guittone che al Dante morale" plus frappante du style de Giraut est son extreme concision, qui est une des ("Dante corne personaggio-poeta della Commedia," p. 58); I would amend that causes principaJes de la diHiculte qu'on eprouve a interpreter son oeuvre" (p. Giraut's rectitudo links him both to Guittone and to "Dante morale," since the 47). Giraut's tendency toward gnomic verse greatly influenced Guittone's style three are inseparably linked. Picone argues that Dante condemns Giraut because as well as Dante's in such poems as "DogHa mi reca"; it is all the more he is identified with the canzoni morali, hence with the Convivia and the donna interesting, therefore, that the key Giraldian term leu should appear in "Doglia gentile; thus the Comedy replaces Giraut, "poeta della virtus mondana," with mi reca," where Dante says that he will now use a "costrutto / piu Heve" (55- Folquet, "poeta della Virtus divina" ("Ciraut de Bornelh nella prospettiva di 56). This and other echoes of Giraut's poetry in Dante's lyrics are noted by De Dante," p. 43). However, since the canzone "Voi che 'ntendendo" is much Lollis in "Quel di Lemosl," Seritti vari di filologia per Ernesto Monad (Rome: more associated with the Convivio and the donna gentile than is Giraut de Forzani, 1901), pp. 353-375. Ferrers Howell considers that the canzone "Poscia Bornelh, and is nonetheless rehabilitated within the Comedy, the Comedy'S ch'Amor," which is particularly replete with is "an attempt to failure to accommodate Giraut is more likely due, in my opinion, to his con- write in Giraut's manner" ("Dante and the Troubadours," p. 215). nection via rectitudo to Cuittone. Antonio Stauble, "Le Rime della 'rettitudine' 110 111 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited Dante no longer seems inclined to acknowledge any vernacular are indeed an integral part of Arnaut's fascination, but precisely poet of rectitude before himself, whether this be the immediate because he goes further than any previous troubadour in fusing precursor Guittone or the more removed Girauti he prefers to formal values with his deepest identity, deriving style from an intimate, as in Inferno I where he designates Vergil the sale internalized erotic mysticism that is uniquely his. Dante is not source of "10 bello stilo che m'ha fatto onore" ("the beautiful so much interested in literal similarities, such as those critics style that has brought me honor" [87]), that he draws his poetic insisted on positing between Guilhem de Montanhagol's chaste nourishment from a more distant past.- love and the stil novo, as he is in an ideal consonancei30 he finds Neither Guinizzelli nor Arnaut, the poets praised in Purga- in Arnaut an intensity of amorous commitment that prefigures to rio XXVI, wrote moral verse. This factor seems paramount his own, a poet who displays throughout his verse an overt link in their positioningi both poets are ahnost exclusively love poets, between eros and praxis, eros and knowledge. Not only is Ar- supreme within this context, who here purge their metaphoric naut objectively the greatest of the Comedy's troubadours, from and textual passions in the refining fire,28 Arnaut Daniel was the poetic standpoint, but his understanding of the poet's metier canonized in the De Vulgari Eloquentia as the Proven,al love is much like that articulated in Purgatorio XXIV i in Arnaut's poet par excellence; nonetheless Dante's purgatorial celebration poetry we find a total identification of the lover and the poet, of the troubadour has elicited some mixed critical reaction, which w.eIl an insistence on Love as the exclusive source of poetic still surfaces in the tendency to limit Arnaut's impact on Dante InSpIratIOn. Thus, in verses that proleptically combine the "fab- to his importance as a technical model, primarily in the rime bro" metaphor of Purgatorio XXVI with the poetic credo of petrose, and to claim that aesthetic criteria are alone responsible Purgatorio XXIV, Arnaut claims to "forge and file words of for his presence in Purgatorio XXVI. 29 Stylistic considerations worth with art of Love" (II, 12-14); he, like Dante, is initiated into a school where Love is the teacher:31 nella coscienza poetica di Dante," Studi e problemi di critica testuale, 8 (1974), 82-97, argues that Dante suppresses those poets who are his models in the area and Speculum, 27 (1952), 459-474, and the review by Marco of moral poetry, namely Giraut and Guittone. De Lollis was working in this BOllI, In Studt danteschi, 33 (1955-56), 167-174. Both Elio Melli, "Dante e direction in "Arnaldo e Guittone," where he notes Dante's preference for love Amaut Daniel," Filologia romanza, 6 (1959), 423-448, and Gianluigi Toja, in poetry, i.e. Amaut, over moral/political poetry, Le. Guittone. the Introduction to his edition, Arnaut Daniel: Canzoni (Florence: Sansoni, 28 The nonamatory poetry of Arnaut and Guinizzelli is minimal: Arnaut 1960), provide excellent bibliographical surveys of the criticism on Arnaut wrote one sirventes, "Pois Raimons en Trucs Malecs"; Guinizzelli wrote a few Danie.l and Dante. Mauro Braccini, "Paralipomeni al'Personaggio-Poeta' (Pur- sonnets on literary and moral themes. In accord with Roncaglia, "II canto XXVI gatono XXVI 140_7)," in Testi e interpretazioni: Studi del Seminario di filologia del Purgatorio," followed by Perugi, "Arnaut Daniel in Dante," and Folena, romanza Universita di Firenze (Milan-Naples: Ricciardi, 1978), pp. 169- "II canto di Guido Guinizzelli," I discount the biographical status of their lust; 256, exanunes Amaut's Proven\al discourse within the larger phenomenon of the point is that they are love poets. the Comedy'S plurilingualism.

29 A number of critics, including Hoepffner, Hauvette, and Veran, articulate 3{1 The case for Guilhem de Montanhagol's prestilnovismo is made by De their surprise at Dante's admiration for Arnaut; Hoepffner endorses the position in "Dolce novo e 'noel dig de nova maestria.' 1/ As Aurelio Roncaglia taken by W. P. Ker in "Dante, Guido Guinicelli and Arnaut DanieL" Modern pomts out, the entIre movement to find stilnovist precedents is a misguided Language Review, 4 (1909), 145-152 (repr. in Form and Style in Poetry [Lon- see e significato dello 'stil novo' dantesco," in Dante e Bologna don: Macmillan, 1928], pp. 319-328), when he claims that Dante's admiration nel tempi dt Dante (Bologna: Cornmissione per i testi di lingua, 1967), pp. 13- for Arnaut rests "essentiellement sur la forme, et non sur Ie fond" ("Dante et 34. les Troubadours," p. 200). Maurice Bowra, on the other hand, defends the 31 Paterson, Troubadours and Eloquence, chap. 5, stresses the "unity of love notion of a thematic as well as formal convergence between Dante and Arnaut, and art" in Amaut's poetry, giving more examples of this theme on pages 187- arguing that Amaut too possesses an idealized conception of love; see "Dante 188. Michelangelo Picone, Vita Nuova e tradizione romanza (Padova: Liviana, 112 113 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited

farai, c'Amors m'o comanda, pes sam ens. "32 Thus Arnaut indicates the identity of his suc- breu chansson de razon loigna, cessor; by echoing Folquet's love poem he implies that the que gen m'a duoich de las artz de s'escola troubadour from Marseilles will be the next (and last) of the Comedy's love poets. Like Arnaut, Folquet is placed among I will make, because Love commands me, a brief song with those with lustful tendencies; moreover, the "folle amore" of a long theme, for well has he trained me in the arts of his Paradiso VIII, 2 recalls Arnaut's "passada folor" of Purgatorio school XXVI, 143. 33 In the episode of Paradiso IX Folquet briefly ad- (XVI, 3-5) dresses himself to his past history as a "mad lover," stressing If Love commands, then a poet can truly write "new" poetry. the intimate bond between himself and the heaven of Venus: of all the troubadour claims for newness, only Arnaut's is- lie questo cielo / di me s'imprenta, corn' io fe' di lui" ("and this for Dante--invested with the epistemological guarantee re- heaven is imprinted by me, as I was by it" [95-96]); to clarify quired to legitimize his "chantar tot nou" ("wholly new song" the nature of the bond, he offers three classical parallels, saying [XIV, 44]); only Amaut's poetry, therefore, can be considered that neither Dido nor Phyllis nor Hercules burned with greater a true precursor of the "nove rime." love than he (97-102).34 Interestingly, the poem echoed by Ar- Arnaut Daniel, the last lyric poet in Purgatory, is the Com- naut and cited in the De Vulgari Eloquentia testifies to just edy's quintessential love poet, in the same way that "Donne such an excessive love as Folquet describes in the Paradiso: ch'avete," the canticle's last autocitation, is its quintessential " no·us am saviamens" ("I do not love you wisely") says the love poem. In his first spoken verse Arnaut points forward to poet to his lady at the beginning of stanza V, and later he adds another poet, the only lyric poet in Paradise, Folquet de Mar- 32 The echo of Folquet's "Tant m'ahellis l'amoIOs pessamens" in the PUr- selha. As has frequently been remarked, this line from the m'ahellis vostre cortes deman" was noted by Nicola Zingarelli Comedy, "Tan m'abellis vostre cortes deman" ("So much does m hIS semmal study on Folquet in the Comedy, La personalitii storica di your courteous request please me" [Purg. XXVI, 140]), echoes Fo/chetto di Marsiglia nella Commedia di Dante, 2d ed. rev. (1897; repr. an incipit of Folquet's, indeed precisely the one cited in the De Bologna: Zanichelli, 1899), p. 25. See also the various reviews of Zingarelli's Vulgari Eloquentia (II, vi, 6), namely "Tant m'abellis l'amoros book: Cesare De Lollis, Rassegna bibliografica della letteratura italiana 5 (1897),127-132; Michele Scherillo, Bullettino della Societii Dantesca 4 (1897), 65-76; Francesco Torraca, Nuova antologia, 153 (1897), 152-165: 1979), comments similarly: ''l: Arnaldo il primo poeta in volgare che formula Scherillo's "Dante et Folquet de Marseille," Nouvelle Revue d'Italie, 18 (Sept.- con grande chiarezza il tema dell'identificazione di amore e poesia" (p. 39). Oct. 19?1), 59-75, is essentially the same article as his 1897 review. Folquet's Although one could assert the primacy of Bernart de Ventadorn for this tra- poetry IS quoted and numbered according to the edition of Stanislaw Stronski dition--one thinks of the well-known verses pointed to in this context by Silvio Le Troubadour Folquet de Marseille (Cracow; Librairie "Spolka Pellegrini," 'Quando Amor mi spira,' "p. 165: "Chantars no pot gaire valer, I Polska," 1910).

si d'ins dal cor no mou 10 chans; I ni chans no pot dai cor mover, I si no es 33 These parallels between the treatment of Amaut and Folquet are noted by fin' arnor coraus" "Singing cannot be worth anything if the song does not come Franco Suitner, "Due trovatori nella Commedia (Bertran de Born e Folchetto from within the heart; and the song cannot come from within the heart, if di Marsiglia)," Atti della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Memorie, Ciasse di within it there is not true love" (Moshe Lazar, ed., Bernard de Ventadour, Scienze morali, storiche e filologiche, Serie VIII, voL XXIV,S (1980),579-643. Troubadour du XIIe Siecle: Chansons d'Amour [Paris: Klincksieck, 1966], p. 34 Zingarelli theorizes that the three classical parallels are an oblique reference 64)-Arnaut is the first, as Braccini notes, to associate Love "non can il generico to Fo!quet's three loves, and to the fact that the canso "Tant m'abellis" is sent trobar rna con il suo aspetto espressamente tecnico" ("Paralipomeni al 'Per- in its last line, to "tres donnas" (La personalitii storica di Folchetto di sonaggio-Poeta,' "p. 252). All quotations of Amaut are from Toja's edition. nella Commedia di Dante, p. 40).

114 115 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited "Trop vos am mais, dona, qu'ieu no sai dire" ("I love you too This passage is preceded by a description of Folquet, "L'altra much more, lady, than I know how to say" [41]). Such senti- letizia, che m'era gia nota / per cara casa" ("The other joy, who ments may be found throughout Folquet's love poetry; in XIII was already known to me as a precious thing" [67-68]), who he tells us that "amiei follamen" ("I loved madly" [29]), using comes to the pilgrim's attention "qual fin balasso in che 10 sol a variant of the key term folie, and twice he refers to the lady percuota" ("like a fine ruby on which the sun is striking" [69]). he adores (I, 31; VI, 25). the phrase "cara cosa" and the reference to Folquet as a Folquet is suited for the heaven he inhabits not only as a precIOUS gem echo Cunizza's original introduction of the trou- lover in Venus but also as an extremely rhetorical and contrived badour, in which she calls him "questa luculenta e cara gioia" poet in the heaven of Rhetoric. 35 As a lover he exemplifies the C'this and precious jewel" [37]); surely the repe- sublimation of erotic love into divine love-something he ac- titIOn of cara and the InSIstence on Folquet as a precious jewel complishes while still on earth by choosing to give up his life reflect his reputation as a poet of precious verse and caras rim as. as court poet and successful merchant for the monastery. The The love poet who was so concerned to delineate the rhetorical sublimation of eros that Folquet emblematizes is reproduced and covert aspects of his passion, asking in one poem "s'ieu dramatically, by placing him in this heaven, and stylistically, no'm sai cobeir, qui m'er cubrire?/1 ("if I cannot conceal myself, by placing in this heaven some of the Paradiso's most daring who will conceal me 1" [IX, 32]), and whose biographers dwell examples of a transcendent linguistic eroticism. We have seen on hIS use of "screen ladies" to hide the true object of his that in the heaven of Venus personal intimacy is deflected, as affections, now partakes of a love whose rhetoric is disengaged in the case of Dante's meeting with charles Martel, by a dom- from the games of eros and from the service of concealment.37 inant political discourse and a strategic use of rhetoric. In his The .strategies of concealment were already, less complicat- meeting with the troubadour, the pilgrim requires nine lines edly, dIsmantled by Arnaut, who tells the pilgrim that he cannot just to ask Folquet his name: because God sees all, and Folquet and will not hide himself: "qu'ieu no me puesc ni voill a vas sees in God, Folquet can see and satisfy Dante's desire to know cobrire" (Purg. XXVI, 141). His use of the verb cobrir which who he is, as indeed Dante himself would do for him, were he figures so prominently in Folquet's lexicon, may be as in Folquet as Folquet is in him. The first and last lines in this another anticipation of Folquet, especially in that it immediately passage are hallmarks of a rhetorical copulation that now takes follows the recall of "Tant m'abellis."38 Cobrir runs through the place of any more direct affectivity: the union between God and Folquet, "Dio vede tutto, e tuo veder s'inluia" ("God sees 37 Falguet's use of "screen ladies" causes a misunderstanding that leads to the loss of his true love; see Stronski, Razo 1, pp. 4-6. On the relation of the all, and your sight in-Hims itself" [Par. IX, 73]), leads to the use of "screen ladies" by FoIguet to the donne dello schermo of the Vita Nuova union of Folquet and Dante, IIs'io m'intuassi, come tu t'inmii" see ZingareUi, pp. 45-46. '

("if I were to in-you myself, as you in-me yourself" [81]).36 38 This is not to deny the usual interpretation of line 141, namely that it is a palinode of Arnaut's trobar elus, as suggested by Sapegno, Purgatorio, p. 292. 35 According to the correspondences Dante sets up in Convivio II, xiii between for Purgatorio XXVI, 143, "consiros vei la passada folor," the heavens and the branches of learning, the heaven of Venus is also the Perugl suggests the incipit of a canso by Guillem de Berguedii, heaven of Rhetoric. Stronski comments on the artificial and contrived nature ConSlros cant e plane e plor," I would like to point also to the opening of of Folguer's poetry, saying that the troubadour was considered "Ie maitre du XXVI1 (a crusade song and the only one of the poems doubtfully style subtil" (p. 86-'1-). attnbuted to Folguet which Stronski tends to accept as authentic); here we find, 36 Enzo Esposito, "II canto IX del Paradiso," in- Letture del Paradiso, ed. aIo.ng with the "Consiros," a song that is antithetically composed both Vittorio Vettod, pp. 141-166, refers to the three neologisms, "s'inluia," "m'in- of JOY and tears, as In the Purgatorio's "leu sui Amaut, que plor e vau cantan"; tuassi," "t'inmii," as "i segni eroici d'un tentativo di approssimazione semantica "Consiros, cum d'amor, I chant mesdatz de joy e de plor" (XXVII, 1- all'inesprimihile" (pp. 158-159). 2). A reconstruction of Arnaut's purgatorial speech is provided by Perugi, 116 117

ILl 'i ------:- Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited Folquet's canzoniere, in thematic contrast to its opposite, des- strategies of closure that govern human love; we must un- cobrir, which stands at the other pole as the poet's unobtainable cover-or discover-ourselves, and stand revealed. desire: "Chantan volgra mon fin cor descobrir" ("In singing I Folquet is the love poet of Paradise precisely because of the would like to disclose my true heart" [VI, 1]).39 The necessity disclosed nature of his service to God, well-known to his con- for concealment generates a painful tension; the lover wants to temporaries and demonstrated by the biography; after reveal himself to his beloved, "To you I would like to reveal withdrawing to a Cistercian monastery, he became, eventually, the pain that I feel" (IX, 29), but he may not, precisely because Bishop of Toulouse, avid participant in the Albigensian Crusade, "If I cannot conceal myself, who then will conceal me"? (IX, and loyal supporter of Saint Dominic: 40 32). To disclose is to dis-cover (des-cobrir), and discovery- either of the self or of the beloved-is not possible in the world abandonet 10 mon; e si se rendet a I'orde de Cistel ab sa of "courtly love," where masks and games are essential; in muiller et ab dos fillz qu'el avia. E si fo faichs abas d'una heaven, where they are not needed, the pilgrim's thoughts are rica abadia, qu'es en Proensa, que a nom 10 Torondet. E spontaneously revealed to the troubadour through the divinely pois el fo faichs evesques de Tolosa; e lai el muric. open medium of Paradise. It is worth noting that in his poetry he left the world. And he gave himself to the Cistercian Folquet did on one occasion suggest a turning to an unconcealed order with his wife and the two sons that he had. And he love' this anomalous use of cobrir occurs in his last poem, was made abbot of a rich abbey which is in Provence which Significantly not a love song, but a crusade song: "Hueimais is called 10 Torondet. And then he was made Bishop of no'Y conosc razo / ab que nos puscam cobrir, / si ja Dieu volem Toulouse. And there he died. servir" ("Henceforth I know no reason with which we can cover ourselves, if indeed we want to serve God" [XIX, 1-3; italics The upheaval in Folquet's life chronicled by the vida is reflected mine]). In other words, to serve God we must put aside the in his last poems, the planh for his dead lord, Barral, and the two crusade songs. A tone of melancholic withdrawal runs through "Amaut Daniel in Dante," pp. 116-139; Folena, "n canto di Guido Guinizzelli," all three poems, but is particularly apparent in the lament, where pp. 504-507; and Mauro Braccini, "Paralipomeni ".Ap- the traditional complaints are compounded by an unusually pendix I, "Sul testa dei vv. 140-7," pp. 224-229. For a lingUIstIc these verses, see Nathaniel B. Smith, "Amaut Daniel in the Purgafono: Dante s defined sense of the futility of earthly life and earthly love: Ambivalence toward Dante Studies, 98 (1980), 99-109. Et er, qan foz plus poiatz, 39 Cobrir and related words appear in Folquet's poems as follows: cobn'r in III, 27; VI, 22; IX,32; XIV, 15; XV, 57; XIX, 2; celar in IX, 30,34; celadamen faillitz a guisa de flor in IX, 31; cobertamen in XIV, 23. Descobrir appears only once, in VI, 1. que, qand hom la ve genssor, Interestingly, the tenso with "Tostemps" also centers around concealment; the adoncs ill chai plus viatz; poets debate the pros and cons of loving a promiscuous lady who openly displays mas Dieus nos mostr' ab semblans her love versus those of loving a loyal lady who keeps her love hidden. Folquet que sol lui devem amar argues for the former, surprising his partner, who had considered him too refined a lover to make such a choice ("mas vos qi es fis amayre" [XV, 55]); 40 See Stronski for the details of Folquet's religious career, and for his positive are the courtly games of concealment so trying that they drive the lover to assessment of Folquet's character, pp. 87"'-99 ...... On Folquet's negative image prefer openness even to fidelity? Regarding the verb cobrir in Arnaut's pur- and the Chanson de fa Croisade, see also Suitner, "Due trovatori nella Com- gatorial speech, Bracdni .notes that" 'parlar ... ab cubertz .e per media," pp. 633-636. The text of the vida is from Jean Boutiere and A.-H. Bernart de Ventadorn requisito dell'amore e it celar compare fm da Guglielmo Schutz, eds., Biographies des Troubadours, 2d ed. rev. (Paris: Nizet, 1964), p. IX" ("Paralipomeni al 'Personaggio-Poeta,' " p. 208). 471; all of the biographies will be quoted from this edition. ll8 ll9 Lyric Quests Historiography Revisited e·l chaitiu segl' azirar a crusade] is good" (XIX, 22). Indeed, the razo refers to this on pass' am com vianans, poem twice as a "prezicansa/' or sermon, precisely because of qu'autre pretz torn' en desonor its hortatory mission, and the critical tradition as far back as e totz autre sens en folor Zingarelli derives the apostolic tone of the last section of Pa- mas de cels que fan sos comans. radiso IX from the tone of Folquet' 5 crusade songs.41 In this And now, when you have most risen up, you faU down context, we can readily admit Folquet's suitability as the poet like a flower which, when one sees it at its most beautiful, I to take Giraut's place in the Comedy's version of the lists of then it falls the soonest; but God shows us with [such] ex- the De Vulgari Eloquentia; he moves from second place, im- amples that we must love only Him and despise the miser- I mediately below Giraut in the catalogue of II, vi, to first place, able world where man passes through as a voyager, for his privileged position in Paradise, on the basis of his converted other worth turns into dishonor and all other understand- love and his divinely militaristic mission. On the other hand, ing into madness, except [the understanding] of those who although Folquet usurps the supreme position held by Giraut in the earlier text, his role in the Comedy is not the equivalent carry out his commands. (XVII, 4S-SS) of Giraut's in the De Vulgari Eloquentia. Mirroring the heaven in which he is situated, Folquet is dichotomous, as is apparent In a genre that normally goes no further than to forecast secular from the two distinct linguistic registers adopted by his dis- desolation as a result of one man's death, this troubadour sug- course: one reflects the preciosity of his love poems and the gests that the death of his lord be read in an overtly religious other the fervor of his crusade songs. 42 key, as a lesson in contemptus mundi; the fall of this IIflower" Folquet is not a poet of rectitude. His canzoniere presents us must be seen to signify not just the demise of a particular state with fourteen love poems (of which I-IX give a hopeful view or system but rather the eventual demise and consequent un- of love and X-XIV are negative), one tenso on an erotic theme worthiness of all mortal things. (XV), one cobia of an unfinished canso (XVI), the lament for It is a short step from Folquet's planh to his conversion; after Barral (XVII), and the two crusade songs (XVIII and XIX). In the recognition that we are but Ilvoyagersfi in a transitory world other words, we find here two distinct kinds of love poetry, one ("on pass' om com vianans" [S2]) comes the sure knowledge motivated by a secular love and one by a divine love. 43 What that "we must love only Him" ("que sol lui devem amar" [SO]).

If the planh for Barral illuminates the spiritual condition re- 41 The reference to a prezicansa is in Stronski's Razo IV, p. 8. The connection quired for conversion from human to divine love, thus adum- between Folquet's crusade songs and the invective at the end of Paradiso IX is brating one aspect of Dante's troubadour, Folquet's crusade songs made by Zingarelli, pp. 62-72; Falena, in the Introduction to Vulgares elo- prefigure the militant stance adopted by the poet in Paradise. quentes, refers to the invective of canto IX as "la perorazione finale in chiave di sirventese morale e di canzone di crodata" (p. X). The language used by Folquet in heaven to present Raab, and 42 Toja elaborates on ZingareIIi's idea that the linguistic registers of Paradiso later in his denunciation of the Roman Curia, is the language IX are intended to reflect both Folquet the poet/lover and Folquet the apostle; of a crusader; both Christ's "triumph" (Par. IX, 120) and Josh- see "II canto di Fokhetto da Marsiglia," Convivium, 34 (1966), 234-256. ua's "gloryll (124) are viewed as victories in which Raab pro- 43 The poems of doubtful attribution do not in any way alter my argument. vided critical assistance to the heroic conquerors. Such a met- Besides love poems, there is one crusade song (XXVII) and two religious songs dealing with repentance (XXVIII and XXIX); of these, Stronski does not think aphoric construct comes easily to a poet who wrote at least two any but the crusade song is even possibly authentic. Stauble too refutes Men- crusade songs, reminding us in one that "such death [death in 'i gaIda's argument that Folquet is the Comedy'S poet of rectitude, saying "pre- {i·l 120 121 zll:,:: ·:t:'"

______4 Lyric Quests Guinizzelli and Cavalcanti we do not find is a concerted attempt to direct people in the the verse of a lesser forebear, as he effects his own lesser tran- living of their everyday lives, or to provide an anatomy of sition. 45 The passage from love poetry to moral poetry is a morals as Giraut does within the limits of the chivalric code crucial one, with a direct bearing on the Comedy; as the initiator and does within a much larger Christian and civic of that passage, the launcher of that transition, Guittone is here scheme.- The category of poet of rectitude is in fact not available implicitly recognized-as the only one of Dante's lyric precur- to the lyric poets of the Comedy; rather, they may aspire to a sors who could actively imagine, if not the Comedy itself, at poetics of erotic conversion, like Folquet. The two lyric poets least the space that the Comedy would later fill. in Dante's lexicon who require such a category, Giraut and Guittone, are rejected out of hand, their authority as precursors denied, their presence in the Comedy entirely negative. Within Fathers and Sons: Guinizzelli and Cavalcanti this general picture, however, we find one possible textual echo with some suggestive implications. The Comedy's first invo- If, in the Comedy, Guittone is a presence, repeatedly vilified, cation to the Muse, a alto ingegno, or m'aiutate; / Cavalcanti is an absence, just as systematically denied his due. a mente che scrivesti cia ch'io vidi, I qui si parra la tua nobi- We have already touched on Cavalcanti's pivotal role as Dante's litate" ("0 Muses, 0 high genius, help me now; 0 memory that early mentor, his first freely chosen vernacular poetic aucta- wrote down what 1 saw, here will your nobility appear" [Inf, ritas. Cavalcanti's importance is overtly acknowledged in a poem II, 7 the incipit of Guittone's great conversion poem, like the plazer "Guido, i' vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io," where "Ora parra s'eo savero cantare" ("Now it will appear if I know his privileged position as head of the group of young poets is how to sing"). Dante's verses pick up and recombine two specific reflected by his emphatic initial position in the verse. Guido is textual elements: Guittone's first word, "Ora," reappears in the the fourth character to be introduced into the Vita Nuova, after injunction to the Muses, "or m'aiutate," with the same purpose Dante, Beatrice, and Arnor; he makes his first appearance in of marking a new poetic beginning; Guittone's second word, chapter III, where Dante is discussing the response to the Ji- the striking verb "parra," reappears in "qui si parra la tua bello's first sonnet: nobilitate" (the only time this form of the verb parere appears in the Inferno), bearing the same semantic weight of a newly A questa sonetto fue risposto da molti e di diverse sen- achieved poetic destiny articulated in the moment of its first tenzie; tra li quali fue risponditore quelli cui io chiamo manifestation. 44 Both passages are the markers of a moment of primo de Ii miei amici, e disse alIora uno sonetto, 10 quale textual revelation; both are concerned with letting it be known comincia: Vedeste, al mio parere, anne valore. E questo that "I know how to sing," Thus, at the Comedy's beginning, fue quasi 10 principio de I' amist. tra lui e me, quando elli as he effects the most sensational of transitions, Dante echoes seppe che io era quelli che Ii avea cia mandata. To this sonnet many replied with differing points of view; feriremrno vedere in Folchetto e nella sua conversione una 'figura' dell'evoluzione among these respondents was the one I call the first of my dall' 'Amor' alIa 'Charitas,' dall'amore profano all'amore sacro, cioe un'ulteriore espressione del 'superamento' della poesia amorosa" ("Le Rime della 'rettitu- 45 Another Guittonian echo at the beginning of the Comedy is posited by dine' nella cosdenza poetica di Dante," p. 93). _ Aino Anna-Maria Paasonen, "Dante's 'Firm Foot' and Guittone d'Arezzo," # Parra appears in the Comedy only five times: Inf. II, 9; Purg. II, 66; Purg. Romance Philology, 33 (1979), 312-317, who believes that the famous crux of IV, 91; Par. V, 25; Par .. XVI, 77. Interestingly, in Paradiso V Dante comes Inferno I, 3D, "Sl che '1 pie fermo sempre era 'I pin basso," echoes a passage very close to imitating Guittone: "Or ti parra, se tu quind argomenti." from Guittone's letters. 122 123